Lifetime Value and how to works it out for Marketing Purposes

It’s Duncan from PWP Web Design and after going on a marketing course recently, I thought I could pass on some of the things I picked up on. Marketing is my business, that’s to say marketing other people businesses is my business. This is why I absorb as much information as I can.

Let’s say you would love to start attracting new clientèle to your hair salon. There are lots of steps you can take to heighten the effectiveness of any campaign. The aspect we shall be looking at today is “life time value”. Do you know the lifetime value of your clients? If you don’t then how do you know how much to invest in order to make it worthwhile to attract them in the first place?

In this example we are using hairdressers, one because they were used on my marketing course and two my business partner David was an ex-hairdresser. You can of course substitute your own data to work out the lifetime value of your clients by asking yourself these questions.

·         What is your customers average spend?

·         How many times do they visit you, per year?

·         How long are they loyal to you?

LET’S WORK SOME FIGURES OUT:    

·         Average spend is £50

·         They visit 6 times per year

·         They stay loyal for an average of 5 years

Remember these are figures for hairdressers, your business will vary.

Now that we have these figures we can work out each customer’s life time value:

£50 x 6 x 5 = £300 x 5, = £1,500

Now you are in a very powerful position! If you know how many customers are on your books you can calculate a good idea of your turnover this year? Each customer being worth £300 per year. You can also work out how many more customers you need in order to reach your 3 year or 5 year goals. You can also work out which form of marketing or advertising will work well for you.

Let’s assume you know a really good online marketing company (you know who) are regularly getting other businesses like yours 12 new clients a year.

Those 12 new clients visit the salon every 8 weeks over the year, spending an average of £50 each visit:

That’s 6 visits per year for each new client (£300) multiply by 12

 = £3,600 of new business per year. Or x 5 = £18,000 over their loyalty lifetime!

WHAT IS THE INVESTMENT WHICH GETS YOU £18,000?    

Our research figures show Flexiads at £59 per month x 12 for the year = £708

£18,000 as return on investment of £708 as percentage is + 2,542%

WHAT THIS MEANS:

If you can answer these questions:

·         What is your customers average spend?

·         How many times do they visit you, per year?

·         How long are they loyal to you?

AND you have a good idea of the conversion rate of each marketing strategy.

FURTHER ADVICE:

There is a great blog on the life time value of customers – CLICK HERE

More information on PWP’s Flexiads – CLICK HERE

UK Marketing Magazine – CLICK HERE

About the author:

Duncan Malloch is an entrepreneur from the UK with specialism’s in online marketing, website design, search engine optimization and coaching. If you are looking for a one stop shop to promote your business online, visit the PWP Web design website by CLICKING HERE. Thank you

Learning What Marketing Works – The Hard Way!

Having being in business for a long time I have learned many lessons the hard way. The purpose of this blog is to point you in the right direction when it comes to marketing, so you don’t make these same mistakes!

In the past I had many sales people call me and say that their marketing would bring me more clients. I would say how many? They would say no marketing company can give a guarantee. So, if I liked the sound of what they were saying and they showed some empathy, I would usually “give it a go”. Guess what, apart from the hayday of Yellow Pages, nothing worked. To the point where I wouldn’t even make the money back on the investment I laid out.

There is a clue there. Marketing MUST be an investment, you must get some kind of guarantee. I was so annoyed at being ripped off by big National companies that I decided to put my electronics and software training to good use. I decided to do all the marketing for my companies myself. That was a long time ago, and I have never looked back.

Around 2005 a close friend said why don’t you offer these services to other businesses? And I now do. Over the years there has been many changes on what works best, but here on the cusp of 2014 is my advice for all you business owners.

1.     What works best today is a powerful mix of onsite optimisation together with a flexible, fully managed online ad campaign. (Flexiads)
2.    All this is great to know, but 100% useless unless you give it a go.

The marketing that didn’t work for me included: All paper advertising, email campaigns, linkedin, facebook, facebook ads, having someone else run an adwords campaign for me, Yell.com now hibu and still as bad, BT customer street and lots of others.

My mission is to help businesses like yours achieve your goals, get more customers and get the reward of more profit for a job well done. Some of you are scared to invest, I know, I have been there. This is why I came up with FlexiAds.

Starting at just £59 or the Dollar equivalent you get one months worth of online marketing which I guarantee WILL get visitors to your website and even calling you directly! After one month we will know whether your campaign has been a success or not. One business who started with us in November received 98 visitors to her website and converted these visits to 8 new clients worth £2,400 per year! For just £59. The thing is we know that by doubling her investment we can get even more visitors and more new clients and more profits! Isn’t this what you want?

We listened to people and they told us they didn’t like contracts. So FlexiAds don’t have a contract. You just pay for a month at a time. This gives you confidence as only companies who are unsure about their services would LOCK you into a 12 month contract. FlexiAds also give you FLEXIBILITY. If like our lady with 8 new clients, if that was enough for now you can stop your ads. If you wanted more clients and more profits you could increase your budget. This has the effect of smoothing out those peaks and troughs in your business cycle.

Also with FlexiAds you get a Duncan, a me on the end of a phone 9am to 9pm everyday! I’m also on Skype or you can visit me, whatever is best for you.

More information on FlexiAds can be found by CLICKING HERE.

10 Interesting Digital Marketing Techniques - CLICK HERE

Thank you and Happy New Year 2014

About the author:

Duncan Malloch is an entrepreneur from the UK with specialism’s in online marketing, website design and search engine optimization. If you are looking for a one stop shop to promote your business online, visit the PWP Web design website by CLICKING HERE. Thank you

Why are You Sabotaging Your Happiness

I am looking to help someone, a business owner who maybe recognises that they are like this:

·         You’re not happy and you blame everyone but yourself for your situation.

·         You even put your own blinkers on because even you don’t want to realise how silly you’ve been.

·         Your next action will determine if you are really ready to stop messing about and sort your business and your life out.

**WARNING **Please IGNORE this blog if you are NOT ready for change. IGNORE this if you are deluded into thinking your current LOT, is the best you can hope for. Please IGNORE this blog if you can’t make a decision. IGNORE this if you are beyond help. IGNORE this posting if you put ANYTHING before your complete happiness. This is your last chance if you want to stay an also ran, IGNORE this now!

***********************************

Now then, would it be fair to say that if you had enough money to pay for your car, your mortgage, clear your bills, pay for your children’s education and have plenty left over to afford a great holiday twice a year – YOU and your family would be a lot happier?

Unlike the majority of people YOU have a way to achieve this dream of a happier life. YOU have a business! Your business and how you run it is the KEY to your future success and happiness. I know it, even if you haven’t realised it yet.

But You Have a Big Problem, Don’t You?

You are not making enough money to pay all your bills, let alone go on two exotic holidays a year! If only someone would come along and show you the way to increase your profits, bit by small bit until you grew in trust and confidence and realised that BIG increases in profits are possible. All these things YOU need to be happy are obtainable. You’ve been offered ways out before and turned genuine opportunities away – The worst of it is, you don’t really know why! YOU could be living a life of bliss right now. I hope you are ready, FINALLY, to change, man up and bloody do something about it!

Here is the Offer

I can guarantee that I can increase your profits, increase your feel good factors by helping you get more customers. What I need to know is?

·         How much is your happiness, and that of your family, really worth?

·         How many customers do you need, who are they and where are they?

·         How quickly can you grow?

·         What would make you and your family really happy

My Promise to You

If the answers to the above questions are worthy, I will guide you towards that happiness, if you are determined, I can make it happen.

Your Action

Reply by email by answering all the questions above, or IGNORE it and go watch TV

Email address is duncan@pwpwd.co.uk - Thank you

Knock Three Times

The Art of Creating Customer Loyalty.

In a conversation with a business coach today we got around to talking about what it takes to impress a customer, so that they stay loyal. Research carried out by political parties in the US, have found that if you can get someone to vote for you three times in a row, then they will stay loyal for their lifetime.

What a powerful idea this is. When you adapt this idea to your business, imagine that if a customer buys from your store 3 times, they would be loyal to you for life. So know that you know this, the question becomes, how do you get a customer to purchase from you three times? To answer this question think more long term. What advantages would having a loyal customer give your business? Do you know how much it costs you to get a customer in the first place?

A chain of hairdressers in the UK went about it like this. When they opened a new salon, they would give customers a free haircut, together with complimentary champagne. This went on for around a month. Then they offered a half price cut which again lasted for about 8 weeks. You see the average women in the UK likes to revisit a hair salon every 8 weeks, so this was factored in to their marketing plan. For the next 8 weeks returning customers were given a further 10% discount, and now they were loyal.

They were used to the surroundings and atmosphere, they were used to the stylists and already had their favorite. They were used to the quality and the customer service. They even knew the best places to park and easiest routes to the salon!

These clever hairdressers knew what the American politicians knew. If we could only get someone to engage with us three times in a row, they would be loyal for life.

As with all forms of marketing, there is a cost to offering free hair cuts, or haircuts at discounted rates. You have to offset these costs against what it would have cost to advertise on the radio, local press, over and over again. Of course with your business you don't have to offer anything for free. Be creative and think if you were a customer, what kind of things would tempt you to give your business a try.

Just remember the story of the £1,600 toilet!

A celebrity hairdresser in London moved to a very upmarket address, paid a fortune to have the salon fitted out, everything was perfect. Well almost. On a visit there I asked to use the toilet, unfortunately it wasn't very clean. I told the owner my concerns and he said he couldn't afford a cleaner, as he had spent so much on the refit. I suggested he should do it himself. He said by the time we close I am too tired and I just want to go home.

The point to this story is you can spend thousands on refitting your business, moving to a swanky address, even spend on getting those clients to come to you three times in a row. Then one day a customer asks to use your toilet and all of a sudden, great service, free champagne, free haircuts, they all mean nothing. All because one little thing let you down, a dirty toilet.

We later calculated that one customer who stayed away because of that toilet would lose the business around £1,600 a year. Please ensure that every aspect of your business is up to the closest scrutiny of your customers.

More information on Coaching can be found by CLICKING HERE. 
How to build a brand that wins - CLICK HERE

About the author:

Duncan Malloch is an entrepreneur from the UK with specialism’s in online marketing, website design and search engine optimization. If you are looking for a one stop shop to promote your business online, visit the PWP Web design website by CLICKING HERE. Thank you

One way to Improve Your Website Bounce Rates

What is bounce rate:

According to Google analytics, “bounce rate is the percentage of visits that go to only one page before exiting a site.”

Factors that influence bounce rates:

Improve Website Bounce Rate

If you stop and have a think about it there are just a few reasons why someone visiting your website would hit the back button, rather than browse more pages.

·         Your website does not contain what they are looking for.

·         They believe your website does not contain what they are looking for.

·         Page load times are too long.

·         Your website is designed in a way they cannot see it properly, like some flash sites.

Any website designer worth their salt could quickly design out the last two items on the list. If your website is about dry cleaning and the browser was looking for wet suits, there is nothing you can do. So, this only leaves one way to improve your website bounce rates. You have to convince people coming to your site that it contains exactly what they are looking for. How can you do this?

Compelling website visitors to stay:

Recent research by business coaches and marketing analysts says that you need a statement at the very top of each page that engages with people browsing it. This statement is not your business name, nor is it your profession. I call it a descriptive marketing statement where you are selling the sizzle not the steak. In other words this is matching the benefits of your product or service with the needs of your target audience.

A cleaner might say – “we don’t cut corners we clean them - thoroughly”

An Engine Tuner– “save money on fuel and gain extra performance”

A photographer – “a lifetime of beautiful memories, captured forever”

How to double the effectiveness of descriptive marketing statements:

Your website visitors have to be subtly led if you want to increase the effectiveness of your descriptive marketing statements. We do this by linking them with strong calls to action. A call to action simply tells your visitors what you want them to do. “Click here for latest offers”, “ Call now to reserve your place”, “download your free diet plan here” .

We all live our lives at a thousand miles an hour and know what we want and if we can’t find it we move on. Or click back! This is why on every single page you should have a descriptive marketing statement in pride of place at the very top of the page. Research suggests that if you can fit in other statements and calls to action, the visitors to your website are more likely to stay longer. The longer they stay the more likely they are to become a customer.

About the author:

Duncan Malloch is an entrepreneur from the UK with specialism’s in online marketing, website design and search engine optimization. If you are looking for a one stop shop to promote your business online, visit the PWP Web design website by CLICKING HERE. Thank you

Boost Your Online Performance for only £99

Boost Your Online Performance for only £99

Boost Your Online Performance

Have you noticed listings with pictures in the Google search results? Like these?

Get Your Picture in Googles search results

Which listing would you be more likely to click on?

For only £99 you can have your picture included with your search results, gaining you a bigger market share. But there is more. The onsite html code, (which we provide) and the link we build for you also BOOST you higher up the search rankings, generating even more customers.

Can you see how, for a one off £99 this is the best investment to boost your online performance?

It’s a simple three step process

1                   Call Duncan on 07795 681 507 to get things started

2                   Send your picture to our email address info@pwpwd.co.uk

3                   We will add the code and verify your email, then that’s it – Your BOOSTED!

Visit our website by clicking our name here: PWP Web Design

Microsites and Their Benefits to Business

Today’s business world comprises of several amazing things and one of them is the ability to create sub brands of the main brand. Traditionally, companies who had a strong brand could translate this into sub brands. These individual sub brands served to strengthen the company’s overall image, and add consistency. Now with advancements in website technology, the modern business age has added its own trends regarding the marketing of these sub brands and a popular way to promote them is known as microsites.  

So what exactly are these microsites? Basically they are smaller, more focused websites which concentrate on a specific product, service or geographical area. A microsite when used as a single individual web page that functions as a discrete entity within an existing website is referred to as a landing page. Today many top businesses have various websites for each product or sub-brand they wish to market. These targeted websites provide many benefits not only to the specific product but to the parent brand and its umbrella of products or services. A microsite should carry across the design theme and feel of your main website and be tightly focused. Usually the webpage is very heavily and highly optimised using identified and specifically targeted keywords or phrases, to attract specific customers.

As there are several benefits of creating microsites, many companies are now jumping on this successful bandwagon. There are thousands of microsites online all over the world. Many feature great content and use creative techniques to promote your services or products. In order to increase your sales of particular products or services, businesses continuously develop new targeted microsites to gain amazing results. Let’s have a look at the benefits that you can expect by having a microsite designed for your business:

• ·         As a business owner the first thing that you should consider when thinking about your professional website is SEO. Search engine optimisation is the key factor in successful online marketing. Microsites have their own unique URL’s, or web addresses which help your customers to find your products and services more easily. Keyword analysis will allow you to choose a rich domain name that will give added power to get found in the popular search engines like Google.

• ·         Microsites are an effective branding option for those businesses who are looking to launch new products or services. You can use them to specifically focus on your target market which will make you stand out as an expert.
• ·         Creating microsites are recommended should you wish to update detailed information about new products and services, resulting in more engagement and contact with customers.

• ·         Microsites can be designed to market seasonal promotions that may have short life span. There are several businesses that use this technique successfully to market their at key times of year.
• ·         A microsite makes the perfect experimental marketing tool. If you want to experiment with your online strategies then this could be your best option.
• ·         The best benefit a small microsite gives you is that it is the cheapest way to get your business online. Because these microsites have less pages and are highly targeted means that they can usually be developed and designed easily, quickly and cheaply.

Above are just some of the benefits of microsites. Your business can gain much more by hiring the services of a web designer with microsite design experience. The one aspect to remember is to focus on just one product, one service or one geographical area. Figure out who your target market is and then your designer can combine this information with keyword analysis to create an effective, fully optimised online presence for your business. 

Duncan Malloch is the microsite specialist at PWP Web Design